Well, good morning, church. Please turn with me and your Bibles this morning to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, we'll be reading verses 9 through 18 this morning, continuing in our series, Christ Our Hope. Our passage this morning, let me just tell you, it's such a beautiful passage. It's such a hope-filled passage, so encouraging to us. It's used at so many funerals to bring assurance, to bring comfort to those who are in grief. And so what I'm gonna do this morning is I'm just gonna let God's Word speak for itself. And we're just gonna read it. And I encourage you as we do that, that you would open your Bibles that you brought to church this morning. And if you haven't, open the one that's in the pew in front of you. Right? And you would read it for yourself. And just let God, in His Word, assure us of what is true. All right? And so 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, starting in verse 9. It says, Now concerning brotherly love, You have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that is indeed what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. We encourage you brothers to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. But we do not want you to be uninformed about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. And then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. Church, will you pray with me? Father, as we approach this passage this morning, let our hope be set on its contents. God, that we truly understand and believe, God, that Christ is coming again. Let that be our hope. Fill your church with that hope. Fill us with this assurance of better days ahead and all that that means. God, and I pray that as we impact this a little bit this morning. that Your Holy Spirit would go before us and stir up this truth in us. God, this I pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so the goal of the message this morning is very simple. All right, I'm gonna make it plain to you. It's to take the truth of the return of Christ and to encourage you with it, all right? And so that's what verse 18 says. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. And so you don't have to wonder, hey, where are we going this morning? What's Chris gonna do, right? My goal is that you would be encouraged, right? That I would encourage you so that when you leave this place and walk out those doors and go into the real world, you would be able to encourage one another and others. All right? Be encouraged this morning? All right, so turn to your neighbor and say, this is gonna be encouraging. All right, you guys actually sounded like you meant it. First service, there's like, I don't know, right? But you guys, right? This is gonna be encouraging. I'm encouraged by your encouragement, right? All right, so this is gonna be encouraging. That's the goal that we're going for. The title of the message is Hope in the Coming of the Lord. Jesus Christ is coming again. Amen. All right, make a note of that. Write it in your Bible. write it on your forehead, write it in the mirror, write it on your bedpost, right? Let it be encouraging to you. Jesus Christ is coming again. And listen, Jesus Christ coming again is the greatest hope of every Christian. If you could get a healthy Christian, a mature Christian, a strong Christian, and you could autopsy their soul, and you could diagnose that more than their thoughts about this year, or more than their thoughts about the next decade, or even their thoughts about their earthly future, their greatest hope would be that Jesus Christ is coming again. That's my hope. I love this verse in Hebrews chapter 9. God's word is so clear, right? Just in case you have doubts, right? You might doubt this. Listen to Hebrews chapter 9 verse 28. So Christ, having been offered once for the sins of many, right? He came the first time. Look at what it says. will appear a second time, just in case you're doubting. That's what God's Word says. All right, a second time not to deal with the sin thing that's been taken care of, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him. Amen. Right? This is the great hope of the church. This is the great hope of every Christ follower. And so we have to go back to where we started at the beginning, week one, when I went to David in Psalm 42. Why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope in God, this is as sure as it gets, all right? So Christians who are sullen or who are filled with fear as they think about their future, They haven't grasped the reality of this understanding as the core of our faith. Right? And we need to understand it, church. That's the first thing. Understand this. All right? Listen, Team Hope. Jesus Christ is coming again. And it's the greatest hope that we have. All right? Give me another amen. Amen. All right? Now, here's the truth. I could get shot while preaching this passage. I could get hit by a bus after I walk out of the church today. I could get cancer and the rest of my life would be a long, hard road of suffering until death. I could grow old and live a relatively healthy life and die peacefully in my sleep. Now, I don't particularly want all of those, but that is not where my hope is set. The Christian knows this world is not my home. And no matter what my life here on earth is like, one day Jesus Christ is coming again. And when He does, I will be raised to new life, full life, complete life with Him forever. That's my hope. And as we read about God's rapture of His church, not some secret rapture that's not actually in Scripture, this one. We read about it today. As we read about the rapture of the church, as we read about Christ returning and reclaiming all Christians from earth, we must understand, okay? We must understand. Look up here for a second. Why do we need to understand this? We need to understand this because hope isn't magic. I'm not gonna do a little parlor trick up here, all right? Hope is not a motivational speech. All right, hope isn't, God help us this morning, hope is not a preacher pep talk that doesn't affect your soul beyond Sunday afternoon. All right, hope is not that. True hope is anchoring to something real. It's a real promise anchored to the rock of God's word. It's confident assurance that there is something better ahead and that better thing that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords is holding for me in regard to my future. All right, and we can take that hope to the bank. All of what has been written by the Holy Spirit in the Word of God is the creator of the universe's declaration about what is certain for every follower of Christ. It is our future. All right? And so do we understand it? And so let's get after that this morning, and let's be encouraged by God's Word, starting in verse nine. All right, go ahead and look at verse nine. He says, now concerning, stop, we gotta stop right there for a second. All right, so anytime we see this phrase, Paul is shifting the subject a little bit. All right, so we're talking about in context, walking in a manner pleasing to the Lord, right? And so Paul just covered the area of sexual purity and holiness, and now we're shifting our focus to love and love of others, okay? And so he says, now concerning Philadelphia, Brotherly love. We're all familiar with Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the city of brotherly love. That's where it comes from. It comes right here from this word in the Bible, Philadelphia. Paul says, no one needs to write to you about that. Well, why not, Paul? Isn't brotherly love a good thing? Isn't it like an important thing? Yeah. He says, I don't need to write to you about this because you're already doing it. The question is, why are they doing it? And I love this, look at this. He says, you're doing it because you have been taught by God to love. All right, I love that. That word, Theododectoi, taught by God. All right, we've all been taught by those around us. All right, some things stick, some things don't. But when God teaches us something, it hits a little differently, doesn't it? It's a profound truth that sinks a little deeper, doesn't it? It's a new conviction in us or a new understanding that cannot be shaken because we have been theododactoy, taught by the Creator Himself. But look at what they had been taught because we completely miss this in English. It says to love. But that word love is a different word than Philadelphia. It's the word agape. In other words, he's saying you don't need to be instructed on how to do the brotherly love thing when you have been taught by God himself to do the agape thing. God-like love, a better, fuller kind of love. See, brotherly love is love for one's fellow man, as a brother, as part of a family, right? You're part of a group. You ever have a friend who's like an idiot and yet you like stand behind them because they're part of the group? Right? That's brotherly love. Christians should have this family or fraternity mindset when it comes to one another because we have been filled by the Spirit of God. We are part of God's family. Right? We have that in common. And so we should be loving one another warts and all. But listen, that's hard enough to do with those who are part of the family. Much more hard is it to have this brotherly love toward those who are not part of the family. And Paul is saying that the Thessalonian church knew how to do the Philadelphia thing because they had been taught by God what his kind of love was. A love that was pure, and unconditional, faithful, sacrificial, and always filled with hope. And he exhorts them, guys, keep going after that more and more. Keep going after that. But then he adds these three things to it. He says, in doing so, remember to hold your peace, attend to your affairs, and continue to work hard. Well, why is he saying that? Well, remember the context of what was going on when 1 Thessalonians was written. The Thessalonian church is experiencing persecution and hardship at the hands of people who do not like them. And how the people of God in the midst of that respond to it will tell those around them, those looking at them, a lot about who they are and about who their God is. Those outside the church, they were looking at the church and saying, okay, what's the deal here? Right? Who are these people? What's all this uproar about? And you know what? I think the world is still looking at the church, asking those questions today. And in that Paul is saying, okay, here's how we operate. Hold your peace, work hard, and continue to love. Show people who you are, whose you are, by your example. In other words, verse 12, walk properly before outsiders. Listen, that is hard enough to do when people like you, but it is God-like to do even when they don't. And so the question becomes, OK, if that's the call, why on earth would I do that? Why would I care about those around me? Why would I love the unlovable? Why would I love the undeserving? Why would I sacrifice anything of mine for the indifferent, for the hostile? I mean, YOLO, right? You only live once. Why would I waste my life? in the concern of others. And listen, church, this is what we need to understand. Because the answer is, this world is not my home. My home is with Jesus, and my hope is set on Him. Not on my ability to get a million dollars, not on my vacation at the lake, not on the amount of Instagram followers that I have. No, no, God looks at that and He says, you think that's the best life? You think that's the thing worth chasing after? You think that's gonna bring satisfaction to your heart? Those things are nothing compared to Jesus Christ, and He is coming again. He is the greater thing. That was a great spot for an amen, by the way, right? And here's the truth. Christians need to renew our minds about this. We need to understand that so we don't get distracted and despondent. Christ is my life. You can have this world. Give me Jesus. I told you this message is going to be encouraging. And so we need to know what's in store for those who have put their faith in Christ. And Paul says this. He says, I do not want you to be uninformed. So that word that he uses, uninformed, that's the word from which we get our word agnostic. I don't know. Maybe he's coming back. Maybe he's not. I don't know. Paul says, I want this to be clear. He's not saying that you know it and don't believe it. He's saying that many, even Christians, they don't actually understand that Jesus Christ is coming again. Now, the skeptics will say, well, Christians have been saying that Jesus Christ is gonna come back for 2,000 years. Where is he? Okay. Well, they were saying that the Messiah was coming for 4,000 years, and then he came. Didn't he? I don't know. I don't know if we believe that he came. Did he come? He did, right? Amen. Jesus Christ will come, is coming again. Now, I don't want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have fallen asleep. So they're asking the question, well, what happens to us in death? So frequently in the scriptures, Sleep is euphemistic for death. The idea is that just as sleep is not permanent, for the Christian, death is not permanent. It is one of our greatest traditions. Therefore, we do not mourn in death as those who have no hope. In fact, we bury the body in hope of resurrection. Right? Right? Okay? And so he says, I don't want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, that you might not grieve as those who have no hope. Right? There's our word, hope. Grieving is not wrong. Right? Grieving is good. We're created emotional beings. God is an emotional God. Grief is good. How many people here have lost loved ones who have gone into eternity? Right? All of us have. On some level. Right? In some way, all of us are connected to this. And you know what? It's okay to grieve that. But we don't grieve like others who have no hope. I had an uncle who passed away several years ago now. And in that passing, I was given the somber privilege to be one of the first to visit with my aunt while she was still very fresh in her grief. And they were not believers. And that visit marked me. because I got to experience firsthand the raw grief of one who had no hope. And in death, the hope of resurrection, those without Christ only see a hopeless end. But we, as followers of Christ, we see beyond death to an endless hope. Do you see the difference there? Right? That should be encouraging to us. Paul isn't saying don't grieve. When people leave us, we face the prospect of living the rest of our earthly life without them. We're sad, we grieve. The biblical word for that is lupeo, soul pain. And that's okay. but be encouraged church because Jesus Christ is coming again. And one day the skies are going to break open and he is going to return and every question will be answered and every wrong will be righted and we will be united with the Lord in the fullness of life, his life forever. All right, as surely as God declares it in his scriptures, it will come to pass. So put your hope right there, right there. But maybe you're with me in this, because I'll be the first to admit, sometimes I get a little distracted. I mean, don't we? Sometimes we get a little distracted. I'm not above that. Often I think, or we're caught thinking things like, man, I hope he doesn't come at the wrong time. Like I'm doing four weddings this year. Man, I hope he doesn't come before my wedding day. I hope he doesn't come before I go on vacation. I hope he doesn't come before I have all of my stuff together the way that I want it. Listen church, we need to be careful not to trade our hope for the lesser thing. Instead, we need to take all of our eggs and put it into the biblical hope basket, knowing I'm not in charge. His timing is perfect. I'm not in control. I don't dictate what's happening. He's in control. You hear me? He's in control. Jesus Christ is Lord. That means master. He's my savior. That's all that I need. That's all that I need. You can have this world. You can have it. That's fun to say. Say it with me. You can have it. No, no, say it with some attitude, like you actually mean it. You can have it. You can have this world. Give me Jesus. That's what I want. Because I know that, that's where I'll be full. And in that truth, guys, we need to lead our families. And in that truth, we need to love the world around us. Because the truth is that we certainly, in this truth, pray for and we work for the people around us. We want them to be saved. We want them to have this hope. We want them to know that the return of Christ, that is actually where hope is found. But church, don't put your hope at risk for anything. I was a campus minister at the University of Rochester And one day I was called into the director of the Interfaith Chapel's office because she was offended that I shared the gospel with her. And so we were having a conversation, and in my conversation with her, I just asked her, I said, why won't you put your faith in Jesus? She had communicated to me that she liked Jesus. Reading the gospels, man, stuff they said, oh, super profound or whatever. Okay, straight up, why won't you do it? Why won't you put your faith in Jesus? You wanna know what she told me? Should I just stand up here looking awkwardly until you say yes? This is what she told me. She told me that she couldn't do it because she knew that if she believed Christianity, it would mean that her husband who had died because of a drug overdose, and he was not a Christian, not a follower of Jesus. It would mean that he wouldn't be with her in eternity. Now, aside from that being poetic, what? She was willing to trade her eternal hope for the lesser thing. Actually, she was willing to trade it for a straight up lie, thinking that we can actually affect what happens in eternity at all. What can we possibly gain from that? Listen, Jesus Christ is coming again. That is truth. This is the greatest hope of every person, every Christian. We need to understand that. Yes, we grieve, but not like people who have no hope. You say, okay, so how do I maintain this hope? Look at verse 14. He says, for since we believe, stop. There it is. We believe. Understand it, believe it. It is not yours until your faith is exercised toward it. Now here's the thing about faith. I can't really say much about it. I can't really say much about you just by looking at you and what's on the outside. Right? It's what's on the inside that counts. Because that's where faith resides. And I can preach on hope until I'm hoarse, and I'm trying to this morning. But if it's not there in your heart, if faith is not in your heart, and you embracing it as your anchoring reality, the truth is you will not live like the Father wants us to live, with confident assurance of better things ahead, a confident expectation of better things ahead, because of Christ. He says, since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. Okay, so here we go. Back in the day, God looked at the world and said, they need hope. They need salvation. They are hopeless without me. And so what did he do? He sent his son, okay? Sent his son to the world, not to condemn the world, but to save the world. Right? Give them hope. That's what he did. And so Jesus Christ conquered sin and death to offer salvation freely to all those who believe. Here's my question to you. Do you think that God will then abandon those that he has saved in the end? Surely not. Are you kidding me? Right? He says, for this we declare to you by a word from the Lord. I love God's word because it's unapologetic in its teaching. And Paul, here he is telling the church, this is not my Paul opinion. I'm not trying to motivate you with pastor speech. He says, thus says the Lord. I'm coming again to get you. Put your hope there. Love that. All right? Straight from the mouth of God. Therefore, guys, this must be fairly important. For this, we declare to you by a word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord. I hope that's us. Right? I hope that's us. How many people here would take a total pass on the death thing? Right? I'm not going to get up to heaven and go, man, you know what? I wish I died. I wish I had the chance to experience that. No, nobody's gonna do that. Who's with me in that? Right? No, no, no. God, I hope this is us. Lord, this would be super awesome if we could be part of that group. But either way, God's grace is sufficient, right? Right? All right, we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, with the sound of the trumpet of God. That's how it's gonna happen. All right, know that, understand that. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. All right, now we need to pay attention to this, okay? All right, pay attention. Check your brain in for 10 seconds, okay? Because we don't want to blow this. I don't want someone from Pittsburgh Community Church flying up there ahead of all the dead people and Jesus has to be like, Dana, get back in line, get back in line. How awesome will this day be? Right? Guys, this is our hope. The Lord will descend, the dead in Christ will rise, and then those who are alive will go to join the party to meet with the Lord in the air. And look what it says. It says, so we will always be with the Lord. Guys, the greatest longing for every heart is the longing for the lover of our soul, for our Creator. And when Christ returns, we will be with Him forever. And in that day, in that, I'll close with this, right? So the question becomes then, okay, all right, how do I hold on to this? How do I get confidence? Yes, I read it. How do I get confidence in this? Well, confidence is only born of experience. And so I would not expect that somebody new to following Christ or a baby Christian would have the same kind of faith that maybe a person who has been walking with the Lord for decades might have. But you know, I have some people in my life that I know that if they say something, and they say they'll do something, and say they'll be somewhere, they will do it. They will be there. And why do I have confidence in that? Because time and again, they've shown themselves, proven themselves to be reliable to their word, faithful. The same is true of God. I once read this book about God's promises called Always True. Always True. God has made all sorts of promises to us in Scripture, hasn't he? It's not like one, it's like a lot. When you're a baby Christian, you hear a promise, you read a promise, and you think to yourself, you're like, well, I mean, that's what it says. Wouldn't that be awesome if it were true? But after you've walked a while with the Lord, putting the full weight of faith down on his promises. And time and again, your experience is that he proves himself to be true. I'll tell you what, I've never been disappointed. He's always been faithful. He's always shown up and done that which he's promised. Now, full disclosure, sometimes I wish he'd tell me what he was doing. Wouldn't that be nice? And sometimes I wish he would do it sooner. And sometimes I wish he'd do it differently. But always afterwards, I find out that his ways and his timing, perfect, faithful. And as we close, I wanna just give you a little secret verse, little secret verse. Not one that I've scribbled in the margin that I made up. It's actually in the Bible. But I'm not sure we know this one. Jeremiah 1.12. Do you know it? Do you know it? Jeremiah 1.12. It's a secret verse, I'm telling you. Jeremiah 1.12, the Lord himself says, I am watching over my word to perform it. Did you know it? Isn't that great? I'm watching over my word to perform it. Don't you think that God knows what he said in his word? Don't you know that he knows the promises that he's made? Don't you think that he knows that he has said that his son is coming again? Don't you think he knows that? What are the chances that the God of the universe, who spoke the worlds into existence, isn't going to make sure that everything that he said happens? Whether I see it or don't. Whether I feel it or don't, even whether I believe it or don't, God today, today is watching over His Word to perform it. Jesus Christ is coming again, church. You can take that to the bank. And if you are one of His sons and daughters, because you have turned from your sin, you've given by faith yourself to Christ, embraced Him for your forgiveness, good news! Be encouraged! This is your future. This is your future. This is your hope. All right, so be encouraged church because this world is not.